underpants

“Sorry, Mate,” the spotty-faced cashier handed back the Barclaycard, “It’s been declined.”

Mr Sullivan barked back, “It can’t be, try again.” He was hot, tired and irritable. It felt like he had been standing in line for hours.

“I’ve already tried twice,” the boy at the register snapped back. “Do you have another card?”

“Eh, yes.” Mr Sullivan flicked through the dozens of plastic rectangles in his wallet. A loyalty card for every occasion. At last he found his Mastercard.

“Try this.” Seconds later he was on his way to the carpark, going through in his mind his recent purchases. “I was close to being maxed out,” his inner voice told him, “But there should have been enough.”

He found his car, settled in the driver’s seat and took out his Smartphone. “Let’s work this out.” The signal in the shopping mall was good (for once) and he was soon into his account, working his thumbs down a list of recent purchases.

“What’s this?” that inner voice again. “Twelve pounds fifty at Tesco?” He thumbed some more. “Seven, forty-five Aldi.? These aren’t mine. I’ve not been in a supermarket in months.” He scrolled some more. Nope, there were no more unexplained entries. “I’ll have to get onto the bank, there’s obviously some mistake,” he thought. He inserted his key and was about to start the engine. “Wait a moment,” he took the Smartphone and went back into the account. The two purchases were within days of each other. “Look at the dates!”

The terrible truth dawned. They were since his bone-idle son had returned from university for the summer. Mr Sullivan sucked on his lower lip, his anger rising. “He’s been using my credit card!” Bloody hell. He gripped the steering wheel, trying to ease his temper. These new cards; you don’t need to have a PIN number, you just tap them on the reader. Anyone can use them. A thieves’ paradise. “Wait til I get my hands on him,” he shoved the key in and the engine roared into action.

At home Rory Sullivan lay on his bed, his sweatpants at his knees and his briefs pulled down just enough so he could get at his cock and balls. His greased palm worked its way up the shaft. His room was a tip (as always), dirty shirts and pants littered the floor. Empty beer bottles were stacked up in a corner. The porn on his tablet was diverting, but no more. He hadn’t been near a girl in the three weeks since he left uni. so it wouldn’t take much to make him splash.

He didn’t hear Dad’s car in the driveway. Nor, the front door open and the rapid, heavy footsteps on the stairs. His bedroom door flew open and his puce-faced middle-aged dad roared in. Startled and embarrassed, Rory grabbed his underpants and tugged them over his semi-erect cock, his face as red as Dad’s.

Mr Sullivan looked at the tablet with undisguised disgust. But, he would worry about that later. There were other crimes to deal with first. “You’ve been using my credit card!” he bellowed, clenching his fists and leaning into his son.

The nineteen-year-old cowered away, his buttocks slipped on the mattress until he could go no further; his back literally against the wall. His dad towered over him, Rory could smell the sweat in the armpits of his Dad’s shirt. “That’s thieving!” Mr Sullivan shouted. “What have I told you about that before?”

Rory’s mind was reeling. What was happening here? “It wasn’t me. I don’t know what you’re talking about?” he croaked.

“Don’t add lying to your list of crimes,” spittle flew from Mr Sullivan’s mouth. “You’ve been using my credit card.” Then, he saw the empty bottles. “You’ve been buying beer!” he waved his arms wildly. “With my money!” Rory’s complexion turned from red to white in the blink of an eye. “You should get a job. Earn some money. You bone-idle git!”

Mr Sullivan reached his hand forward and gripped his son by the wrist. “Don’t say I haven’t warned you.” He pulled hard and the boy slithered to his feet, mouthing protests “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it!”

“Liar! Be quiet!” Mr Sullivan sat on the bed, bouncing on the soft mattress, he parted his legs and dragged his son towards him. In one movement he had the boy across one knee, with his face in the duvet. He pounded Rory’s backside with the palm of his hand. Bang-bang-bang; it sounded like machinegun fire.

“Ow!, C’mon Dad. Oww! Dad. C’mon.”

“You’re just a bloody thief.” Mr Sullivan’s hands were as big as shovels, and Rory’s bum cheeks were small and pert. The tight cotton underpants felt smooth against his heavy calloused palms. “Ow, Dad!” Rory wriggled and writhed, turning his body this way and that so it looked like he was trying to swim away across the bed. Dad held him tightly across the lower back. The brat was going nowhere, not until his backside glowed in the dark.

Smack-smack-smack. Dad’s hand was large and heavy and his son’s bottom small and soft, but Mr Sullivan knew from experience his own palm was hurting much more than Rory’s bottom.

“Doh! This is no good,” he groaned, inwardly wishing he had not been in such a hurry to spank his son. If he had prepared he could have brought his wife’s big, ebony hairbrush. That would take the brat’s backside off.

On the floor, partially hidden by a pair of dirty underpants, he saw one of Rory’s leather sandals. Perfect. He released his son, who leapt to his feet, rubbing the back of his underpants. He was in no real pain, but he didn’t want Dad to know that. He massaged his bottom as if it was scorched. His antics gave Mr Sullivan time to reach across, pick up the sandal, and resume his position. He hauled his son over his knee and without word or ceremony he took hold of the elasticated waist of the striped underpants and tugged them down over his buttocks.

“No!” it was a tremendous wail! “Dad, no!” people in the street would have heard Rory’s shriek. Dad noted with satisfaction that his son’s once creamy-white cheeks were now a deep pink. He took tight hold of the leather sandal and walloped it into the centre of the boy’s left cheek. The outline of the sandal’s soul was immediately embossed in the flesh. He did the same with the right.

Dad had never spanked Rory with a sandal before. The sole was leather and solid, unlike a bedroom slipper. It was not as thick and heavy as a paddle, but it still packed a punch. Rory would not stop hollering, “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” The lie encouraged Mr Sullivan in his task. The sandal’s outline was reproduced right across the target area. He concentrated on the meatiest part on the peak of the globes and was rewarded with mauve bruises. He turned his attention to the back of Rory’s thighs. That had the boy squealing and squirming. This was the most sensitive part of the posterior. Rory would be reminded of this spanking every time he sat on a hard surface in the hours ahead.

“I’ll teach you, you thieving brat,” Mr Sullivan’s fury was genuine. Fifty, sixty, seventy times the leather sandal whipped into Rory’s scalding backside. Now he was crying, writhing, panting, and praying the agony would soon be over. None of the spankings he had experienced before had been like this.

“Another fifty and we’re done,” Mr Sullivan’s inner voice told him as he laid into Rory’s backside with increased vigour.

Downstairs, Mrs Sullivan put on her coat, before she left the house she found her husband’s wallet and extracted his Mastercard from it before setting off for the supermarket to buy that evening’s supper.

I stood feet slightly apart, hands clasped behind my back and watched morosely as the headmaster shuffled across his study. He paused at a hat stand. It contained no hats, nor coats. Instead a single curve-handled whippy rattan school cane dangled. He coughed slightly before stretching up his right arm to unhook it.

I took a deep breath. I knew how this scene was about to play out. He grasped the cane in his fist and turned to face me. He swiped the cane through the empty air; it made a terrific swooshing sound as it flew.

He scrunched up his face and peered across the room at me. In my mind’s eye I can still see him clearly, fifty-five years after the event.

He swished the cane once more and then craning his neck forward towards me he gripped the cane between his two hands. It was a standard pose, a cliché almost. He flexed the cane. It was more than three feet long and as thick as a pencil. Even at a distance I could see many notches along its length. In the right hands this would be a terrible weapon. And, the headmaster had those hands.

His penetrating stare never left me. His receding hairline reminded me of Dracula, but without the fangs. His pasty jowls and heavy bags under the eyes gave him the air of one who carried the troubles of the whole world on his shoulders. Perhaps, he felt he did. He flexed the cane thoughtfully. Then he spoke.

“This is for your own good,” he rasped. Later in my own adulthood I would recognise the cigarettes and whiskey in such a voice. He waved the cane in my direction in case I hadn’t understood the import of his words. I begged to differ, but kept my counsel and heard him out.

“You have been spoken to before,” he wobbled the cane some more. “You are lazy and do not work hard.”

He was wrong, I was not lazy I was bored; it wasn’t the same thing. I was eighteen; too old for school. I should have been somewhere else. I knew many men who remained schoolboys most of their lives, they never grappled with adulthood. I was not one of them.

“Unless you buckle down to your studies,” the headmaster intoned, “You will not pass your examinations.” He laid great stress on the word examinations, stringing it out as if it consisted of six syllables. I remained silent, I knew he didn’t want to hear what I had to say. “You will not get a university place and then where shall you be?”

University place! Nobody had asked if I wanted to go to university. Everyone, the masters at school, my parents, my brothers my pals, they all assumed I wanted to go to university. Looking back, I can’t say I can blame them. It was that kind of school, it existed to get boys to university. It had no other function. If a boy did not go “up” as we called it in those days, he was a failure. Irredeemable. Hopeless. Without worth.

“This is for your own good,” he said once more. Still I was unconvinced. Perhaps, it was for his good. I can see him now, his shoulders hunched, his sad grey eyes often with a distant, wistful look. Dandruff flaked the shoulders of his tatty academic gown. Buttons of his waistcoat strained against his paunch. His tweed trousers strained at his stomach. Today we might call his look “seedy.”

He swished that goddam cane once more. “You will thank me for this one day,” he said with no hint of irony. “This might be the saviour of you.”

Did he really believe what he said? Could he hear himself? Imagine it was today. A headmaster, a man probably well into his fifties; older possibly. Instructing an eighteen-year-old boy to prepare himself to bend over so that the headmaster might lash him across the backside with a cane. You could see the social workers, the law courts, the newspaper headlines.

But this is now; that was then. Nobody much thought it odd. I certainly didn’t. It was simply the way things were. Schoolmasters, doctors, priests, you name them, they could do what they liked. The deference to our betters was boundless.

The headmaster shuffled closer to me, I watched him conscious that my heart was racing faster than I should have liked. I wanted this over with. I was determined to make minimum fuss. To let him have his way.

“Hang up you blazer,” it was a curt command. I was annoyed that my fingers fumbled over such a simple task. At last I had it where moments before the cane had been hanging. “Lower your trousers.” It was a curt command, one the headmaster expected to be obeyed – without question.

It was not unexpected. Senior boys were always swished trousers down. I know what you’re thinking. Today, we would cry “pervert” or even worse. In those days it was to be expected. We never got it bare-arsed, like at some schools. There had been a court case around that time of a housemaster at an expensive, elite “public” school who had been up before the magistrate after he gave one of his charges a stiff six across the naked buttocks. He was cleared of all charges. “He must be acquitted,” the Beak had said, “Else we should have half the housemasters in England up before the bench.”

I was to be spared the ultimate indignity of showing the headmaster my manhood. Pants, I suppose, afforded a certain amount of modesty. I don’t suppose a caning with my Y-fronts at my ankles would have been any more painful.

I struggled with my belt, those darned fumbling fingers again. At last I had it loosened with the top button of my trousers. They were made of some heavy wool mixture (I think) which may have been why the headmaster made us remove them. Once I had undone the top two buttons of my fly, they slipped down my thighs and snagged at my knees. I spread my legs slightly and they slithered down and fell into a puddle at my feet.

“Bend over. Touch your toes,” again a bit of a cliché. I wonder how many schoolboys of my era heard those dreaded words uttered by his head or some other school master. “Head low, bottom high.” That last instruction seems to me superfluous. Surely, it is impossible for a chap to bend over and touch toes without the bottom being high. That, after all, is the object of the exercise.

I knew from painful experience that “toes” meant toes, and not knees or shins. I was quite an athlete in those days and my body was supple. I bent forward and with my knees straight, I stretched my fingers so they brushed the toecaps of my black lace-up shoes. In this position I had a perfect view of the worn rug beneath my feet. I suppose it had once contained a blue pattern; but by this time, after generations of schoolboys had shuffled their feet into position, it was a grimy grey.

It was only now with my legs bare that I felt how cool it was in the study. It would have been March or April and spring had not quite sprung. I shut my teeth firmly together and closed my eyes and waited. The floorboards in the study were as worn as the rug and they creaked loudly as the headmaster circled my body. Once he had examined my submissive body from every conceivable angle, he paused almost directly behind me. I heard him wheeze heavily and once again clear his throat. It sounded like he might be clearing phlegm from the back of his throat.

I shuddered, from the cold or nervousness I do not know, when the headmaster took hold of the tail of my white shirt. In those days shirts had proper tails and this one would have been covering my buttocks and the backs of my thighs. He gripped the cotton hard and dragged the material up my back and left it resting against my shoulders. I shuddered again when the headmaster took hold of the elasticated waist of my underpants. He did not (as I feared he would) drag them to my knees, thus exposing my bare bottom. Instead, he tugged hard so that my pants dug up into my crack and so that the white Y-fronts fitted snuggly like a second skin.

To test this was so, the headmaster circled the palm of his hand firmly around my right buttock cheek. Satisfied there were no creases there, he repeated the manoeuvre on the left. Finally, he landed the open palm of his hand across each cheek, as if to give me encouragement for my ordeal ahead.

The floorboard creaked again and now the headmaster had taken up his position a little to my left. The tip of his cane tapped against my stretched buttocks. He laid it across the centre of both cheeks and tapped some more. He was getting his aim. I closed my eyes tighter and took a deep breath and held it. The cane lifted away from my bum, there was an almighty swishing of air and a loud crack as rattan cane hit flesh. I heard it before I felt it. A split-second passed before a searing, burning sensation lit up my bum. I bit down hard on my bottom lip, my body rocked forward, my feet slipped on the worn rug. The agony was sensational. The headmaster was indeed a “master” with the cane. With many years of experience he had developed the knack of inflicting maximum pain to a boy with seemingly minimum effort.

He hacked out a cough and took his aim once more. The cane sought out the underside of my buttocks, at that most sensitive spot where the buttocks meet the thigh. It was also what we called “the sit-upon spot”, that part that connected with the chair you sat down. If the cane lashed there you would feel it for hours (at least) later, whenever you tried to sit down.

The headmaster caught me a beauty and before I had time to feel it he landed a second right next to it. I now had a throbbing strip of agony about an inch wide running the entire length of my bum. I could feel the welts rising. The floorboards creaked. The headmaster was taking a walk. I was too concerned with the agony in my arse that was throbbing out in all directions through my body to pay him much attention. My hair was soaked with sweat, my heart pounded and my temples pulsated just as intensely as my backside.

It seemed an eternity before I felt the headmaster place his whippy rattan cane across my bum once more. This time, he went higher; to the top of the globs, closer to the spine. He was determined that no square inch of my rear end would escape his administrations.

Swish! Crack! Ouch!

I had been determined not to make a fuss but stroke number four knocked the wind out of me, my mouth gaped open and then closed and repeated the movement until I resembled a goldfish out of water. Air hissed through my (now no longer shut) teeth and I let out an immense groan of pain. I couldn’t help myself; it was a reflex action, my body’s natural way of coping with the pain.

Miraculously, I held my position, back arched, fingertips on toes, knees straight. Two more strokes to go.

I heard him move his position and felt the cane explore my buttocks from a different angle. Oh My God! Sweet Jesus! Before he had aimed across my cheeks from left to right, delivering four parallel lines of pain. Now he was going from the lower part of my left cheek across to the top of the right. A diagonal. The Brute! Crack, it was the hardest stroke yet. It went at a speed of a million miles a second and landed across the four throbbing welts. I shrieked and jumped to my feet, hands gripping my ripped bum. I bounded from foot to foot while simultaneously howling. I must have looked like I was doing some Red Indian (sorry, Native American) dance. I bent double, knees buckled, puffing for breath. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

The headmaster watched me from a distance, a half smile of satisfaction, cracking his heavy jowls. He flexed his cane and pointed it towards the spot where until a moment ago I had been bending. “We have not finished. Resume the position.”

If looks could kill I am certain he would have died on the spot. My bum was red raw, it felt like I had sat in a bathtub of scalding water. I couldn’t take any more. The headmaster glowered. “Bend over.”

With a superhuman determination I first straightened myself and then limped back to my position on the rug. Despite my trembling I parted my legs and bent forward. I could not believe how red the backs of my hands were. My blood pressure must have been off the scale.

I waited for the final stroke. Of course, the bastard laid his cane across the opposite diagonal, lifted it high and completed the perfect “X” across my bum. I don’t know how I managed it but I stayed down, touching toes, until the headmaster intoned, “Stand!”

I jumped to my feet. I couldn’t look the headmaster in the eye. My bum was beyond painful. The agony was so intense I could no longer feel it. I suppose that’s what athletes mean when they say they went beyond the “pain barrier.”

Without waiting for further instructions I hauled up my trousers and as best I could in the circumstances, I buttoned up.

The headmaster laid his cane down on his large walnut desk. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet. His face was deathly white when he turned to me and said, “That was for your own good. You will thank me for this one day.”

It wasn’t and I didn’t. I failed my exams and never went up to the varsity.

Like this:

SCENE. The principal’s office at Brocklehurst College, a “crammer” for young men who have failed their A-level school examinations. Five assorted eighteen-year-old boys are lined up ill-at-ease in front of the Principal’s desk. The Principal is speaking.

Stand up straight, all of you! You boys have never met one another before but you know you are all here for the same reason. You failed your A-level examinations and now we have little more than two months to prepare to retake them.

None of you are stupid, that’s clear. But you are lazy and you lack self-discipline.

It’s because you lack self-discipline that here at Brocklehurst College we have a regime that imposes discipline upon you.

Here we use corporal punishment.

Don’t look like that; you are fully aware of our methods here. More to the point, so are your parents. Indeed it is precisely because we use corporal punishment that they have signed you up. They want you to pass your A-levels and we want you to pass. It is still to be seen whether you boys want to pass.

We use corporal punishment. The teachers will use a strap or a slipper if you are late for class or inattentive. For more serious offences, such as poor work, they might use a cane. If you are sent to me for punishment I shall administer the cane across your backside. If you repeat the transgression or are guilty of a more serious matter, that caning will be on the underpants or bare bottom. I hope I make myself clear.

Good, it seems that I do.

Here you will work hard; seven days a week. As a break from your studies on Wednesday afternoons and Sunday mornings there will be physical activities that are also intended to broaden your minds. These activities are compulsory for you all.

When I have finished with you please go to the dormitory where you will find your college uniform. You each have a blue-and-yellow-striped blazer, grey flannel short trousers and grey and blue knee socks. You will wear this uniform at all times, both inside and outside the college.

Silence!

You will hand in all your other clothes and these will not be returned to you until the day you are ready to leave. You will also hand in all your personal possessions, including phones and electronic gadgets. This is an alcohol, tobacco and drugs-free college so if you have any of these items in your possession please hand them in.

You should consider this an amnesty. If you have these items and hand them in then nothing more will be said, but if you do not and later you are found in possession of any these items you will be punished with the utmost severity. Is that clear?

Is that clear!

Good.

You boy, what’s your name?

We use surnames only at the College. And you will always address me as, Sir.

Well, Wendersley, did you read the College instructions about haircuts?

Well boy?

Yes, you did. Then you know the College rule is that hair must be cut short and not touch the neck or ears.

So, why have you not followed the instruction?

Sir! I have already told you that you must always address me as, Sir.

So, you knew of the instruction, but decided to deliberately disobey it.

Yes, that is about the size of it. You will wait behind after the others have been dismissed. I am going to beat you and then I shall arrange for a man to come from the town to cut your hair.

Be quiet. All of you.

Now, I want you to go and put on your uniforms and return to my office at five o’clock. Do not be a minute late. I will then give each of you six strokes of the cane.

Be quiet.

Pah! I will give you six-of-the-best. This is to show our dissatisfaction at your past laziness and failure at the examinations.

I said be quiet. I will not allow this. You will obey my instructions to the letter.

I will give you six-of-the-best to show our dissatisfaction at your past behaviour, but it will also be a warning for the future. If we consider you are slacking in your studies you will be beaten again. I hope I make myself clear?

Right. You four boys go to the dormitory and change. You. Wendersley. Stay behind.

Right let me deal with you Wendersley. Please take that armchair there and turn it round so that its back faces into the room.

Thank you.

Ah, it would seem that you have never seen a rattan cane before.

I thought not. It is a pity. If you had been caned earlier in life you would not be the slacker you are today and you would not need to be here.

Look how swishy it is. It will hurt you a very great deal. That is the point of a caning.

Please stand behind the chair.

Silence, boy. You will do as you are instructed. Stand by the chair.

Wendersley, if you do not accept your punishment I will not allow you to stay at the college.

Would you like me to telephone your father and tell him I am putting you on the next train home?

No, I thought not.

Stand by the chair.

Closer boy.

I see you are wearing thick jeans. Perhaps, you should take them down.

Wendersley, you are becoming tiresome. You will please do as I instruct. Take down your jeans.

I am waiting Wendersley.

Ha! Bright red underpants. From now on Wendersley you will be wearing white cotton Y-fronts.

Now, bend over the chair.

Quickly.

Keep your head low and your bottom high.

That’s right. Here is the first stroke.

Bend back over boy. If you stand up again, I shall give you extra strokes.

Back over.

Number two.

Doh! Keep still.

Three.

I shall not tell you again.

Four.

Stop your blubbing, take it like a man.

Five.

Keep those legs still.

Last stroke.

You may stand up Wendersley.

Stop rubbing your bottom.

Pull your jeans up. Get dressed properly.

Stand there.

Here, take this and wipe your eyes.

I hope you have learnt a lesson. At Brocklehurst College you must obey the rules. Failure to do so will result in corporal punishment. There will be no exceptions.

Tomorrow, I shall arrange for you to have your hair cut. For now, go to the dormitory and change into your school uniform. Be sure to be back here at five o’clock with the other boys.

You are dismissed.

SCENE Some days later in a classroom after a geography test. The geography master and a student are alone.

Well, Hill, fifty-two percent; that’s pretty dismal don’t you think?

It’s nowhere near A-level standard, boy. You should have been able to answer these questions at GCSE, lad.

You need to buck your ideas up.

Yes, you do.

Please fetch me that plimsoll.

Hill. Fetch me that plimsoll.

Hand it here, boy. Hand it here. Thank you.

Stand there beside me.

Look, Hill. If you make me repeat everything I shall make sure I also repeat the number of stokes I give you. Do you want double?

No, I thought not.

Stand there.

Come closer.

Now, take down your shorts.

Hill!

Quickly.

That’s better.

Over my knee.

Doh! Come here.

Put you head lower.

Now, give me your arm. We don’t want you going anywhere.

Stay still. Stop wriggling.

Still boy. I am going to spank you with this slipper. Just accept the inevitable. And make sure you do better in tomorrow’s test, or you’ll be across my knee again.

Let’s have these down. Oh, you weren’t expecting that? Well, Hill, it’s not a proper spanking unless it’s on the bare.

Don’t fight me boy!

Hhhhhhh, if you fight me, I’ll get one of the other boys to come in to hold you down over the desk. So help me, I’ll take your backside off.

Mmmmm. The more you struggle, the harder I’m going to spank you. I can keep it up all night if I have to.

Hill! Do you want me to send you to the Principal? Do you want his cane across your bare bottom?

“Hi hon, is the preacher at home?” Cheryl breezed into the church reception area ignoring the two middle-aged men who were waiting apprehensively and flashed her toothy smile at Karen, the receptionist-cum-secretary.

Karen raised her eyes from the Bible she was reading to acknowledge her fellow church-attendee.

“Not immediately, no,” she whispered, nodding in the direction of the visitors. Then soundlessly she mouthed the words, “It’s that time of the month.”

Oh, Cheryl got it. That time of the month. Of course, she had forgotten. It had nothing to do with the biological clock; it was the twenty-sixth; the day each month when Preacher Pasternauch got intimate with God.

“Oh, I forgot. Never mind I’ll come back tomorrow,” then turning to the two men, she called cheerily, “Good luck,” and departed just as breezily as she had arrived. Karen returned to studying the Bible.

On the other side of the wall, Preacher Pasternauch was listening to Luke.

“I have been lusting with my eyes, Preacher.” Luke, twenty-five and married with two lovely daughters (blessings from God), was distressed.

“Tell me all about it,” the preacher sat back in his lush padded leather armchair and closed his eyes; the better to concentrate on Luke’s tale of wickedness.

“Lusting with the eyes,” it was a common fault among male members of the preacher’s congregation. Luke had been punished by God for this offence before.

It was the young lady at the drugstore. Her big breasts bounced, seemingly uncontrolled, under her loose woollen sweater. He struggled to keep his eyes off them whenever he visited the store.

“Women are wicked, Luke,” the preacher adopted the tone of voice that he had convinced himself demonstrated that he was a caring father. Caring and loving. A father whose duty was to help his sons (whatever their ages) to grow in the image of God. He should praise them fulsomely when they did well, and punish them severely when they erred.

“What else have you been doing? Have you been touching yourself?” the preacher would need to hear all the details before he could ask God to pronounce the sentence that he should carry out.

Luke blushed, “Oh, no preacher, nothing like that.”

“Are you sure, Luke?” the preacher tried to hide his disappointment. Luke had visited the preacher three months previously to report similar stirrings. That time it had been a teenaged girl in the gas station.

“Tell me everything, boy. Don’t spare me the details.”

Preacher Pasternauch was the emissary from God. He acted for God on Earth. God was kind, but he was also stern. God directed the preacher to punish the wrong-doers in his congregation. They must learn to fight their wickedness and when they found they were failing Preacher Pasternauch would offer them encouragement.

Luke’s tale was short. He was guilty only of “lusting with the eyes,” but not masturbation or adultery.

“I think you know what must happen now, don’t you Luke,” the preacher said as he rose from his cosy chair and walked five paces across the room to the far wall, where hanging on hooks were three wooden paddles of differing lengths and thicknesses.

Luke was the preacher’s third visitor that morning and there were at least two more awaiting their turn outside. His first visitor had been Matthew the retiree. The preacher was uncertain, but thought the man was at least seventy years old. His wickedness was alcohol. On three separate days this past month he had drunk more than three beers. His drunkenness was a curse. He tried to fight it, but he was weak.

Matthew tried to fight his booze habit; but he believed himself to be a feeble man. He could not do it on his own. He visited the preacher on the twenty-sixth day of each month and had been doing so for as long as the preacher had held these sessions. The old man had left the preacher with his rear blazing and hobbled back to his dark, lonely, room.

Preacher Pasternauch was not a philosopher; he did not ask why the regular spankings could not make Matthew kick the booze habit. Even, as he replaced the heavy wood on its hook it did not enter his head why Matthew would be back in his office for a repeat performance in thirty days’ time.

The second visitor was a newcomer. He was not new to the church, he had been attending for many years; but this was his first visit to Preacher Pasternauch’s monthly “confessionals”. The preacher held open house; any one of his male congregants (aged eighteen or over) could turn up, no appointment necessary, to confess his wickedness. They would pray together and the preacher would administer a stern dose of corporal punishment. God, through the right arm of the preacher, would pardon them of their wickedness. Now, they were fit to return to their community and once again live for the glory of God.

John ran a small accounting firm, just off Main Street. It was doing very well and he made a comfortable living. Just lately his work had begun to bore him; there was no excitement in his life. His life was empty.

No, he rushed to assure the preacher, not empty of Jesus Christ, but just empty: uneventful, devoid of excitement.

So, John, for the first time in his forty-two years on this planet had taken to gambling. He knew it was wicked, but the lure of the state lottery ticket had proved too enticing. He had spent, lost, and therefore wasted, ten whole dollars each month for the past six months. Now, despite the financial losses (he was an accountant after all, so he knew the danger of losses) he found he could not give up the thrill of the chase.

He had toyed with the idea of visiting the preacher for some weeks before, but he was afraid. But, while praying hard to God he received a message; he must confess to the preacher. It was no secret that the preacher held monthly spanking sessions, so John knew what was in store for him when eventually he visited. That was the problem.

John had a great deal of experience receiving corporal punishment. His father had been a keen spanker. Well into his early twenties (the age he finally could afford to move out of the family house) John had been subjected to his dad’s discipline.

Sometimes, more than twenty years after his last thrashing, John could still feel the welts. His father had broken three switches, cut especially for the purpose from the backyard, across his bare buttocks. That would teach him to cut classes at the accountancy college.

The preacher listened sympathetically, gave a short homily on the wickedness of gambling, conducted a much longer prayer for forgiveness and then took the skin off John’s rear end. The poor man was howling by the time he was instructed to pull up his pants and leave.

It hurt like crazy. He knew it could not possibly be as painful as the switching from his father, but back in those days his backside had grown used to the lash. In the intervening twenty or so years, his buttocks had grown flabby and he felt intense agony as each whack of the wood connected.

Now it was the turn of Luke. “So Luke, let us pray.” Both men knelt on the floor of the office. The hard nylon-based carpeting cut into Luke’s knees. It was painful, but he ignored it; you were not supposed to be comfortable while praying to God.

The prayer took five minutes to conclude. God was told of all the young man’s lustful thoughts and of his history of wickedness. Then both men were silent while Preacher Pasternauch received his instructions from God.

“Yes, Lord.” The preacher rose from his kneeling position, convinced that he was about to perform the will of God.

“Pain and humility,” that was how Preacher Pasternauch would explain it later to the county judge. Not only would he spank the men hard, he would ensure that they demonstrated the right degree of humility. Not to himself, of course, but to God.

The preacher sat in a large, heavy, straight-backed wooden chair. Luke had been here before; he knew what was expected. He was twenty-five years old. It was the lunch hour and he had motored from his office downtown to the church. He had left his jacket in the car so was dressed in a crisp white dress shirt with a sober tie. His trousers, part of a matching suit, were dark grey, with a hint of a blue stripe running through them. They fitted snugly; Luke was not fat; and certainly not obese like many of his fellow church attendees.

His face was bright and open and his skin clear. He had been well into his twenties before he had developed enough beard that it needed shaving daily. His hair was cut short and neat. Luke was the conventional young man any of us might see in the street and never actually notice.

The preacher sat himself down and Luke, without instruction, moved to stand a couple of feet away from the older man’s right leg. No words were spoken, but the preacher simply pointed with his index finger at the young man’s waist and with a downward movement mimed that the pants should be lowered.

Luke could feel his face flush. The last time this had been the worst part; preparing himself, taking down his pants and exposing his underwear. The preacher had kindly informed him this was about “humility.” He was showing that he was humble before the preacher and therefore before God.

It certainly was embarrassing, even this second time. But, Luke knew that this was God’s will. He would submit himself to the preacher in any way that he was instructed. Finally, he had his pants resting on his shoes.

“Lift up your shirt so that it is away from your buttocks and then please bend over my legs.” It was a kind, friendly request. The preacher knew that his congregants accepted they had behaved wickedly and were ready to pay the necessary price for redemption.

Luke lowered himself across the preacher’s lap and with his arms stretched out in front he placed his hands firmly palms down into the nylon flooring. Once again, he sensed its hardness and it felt scratchy against his skin. But, something was not quite right; his necktie had caught under his body and was pulling at this throat, if he was not careful he might choke. He lifted himself an inch or so above the preacher’s lap and with his right hand pulled the tie clear and left it dangling in front of his face. He rested once again on the preacher’s lap. He was now in a comfortable position and Luke was pleased about that, but he knew what was to happen next would be far from comfortable.

The preacher was not quite ready to start. He smoothed Luke’s maroon-colored briefs, removing any wrinkles from the cotton. Satisfied that they now hugged the contours of the young man’s globes, the preacher prepared for the onslaught.

He had chosen his middle-sized paddle. It was maybe twelve inches long and three wide and about a half-inch thick. It was the perfect size and weight to deliver a sound over-the-knee spanking. He had wrapped Scotch tape around the handle to give him an extra grip; he didn’t want the paddle to slip from his fist while he was in full flow.

Luke’s breathing was heavy, and involuntarily he clenched his buttocks tight, ready to absorb the full impact of the first swat.

Luke tried, he wanted to satisfy God and present himself submissively, but for some reason he did not understand he did not have control of his body.

Whack! the wood crashed right across the center of both buttocks. “Please God, save me from my wickedness. Help make me a good man,” Luke did not say the words out loud but he repeated them over and over in his mind as the preacher tore his buttocks to shreds. He knew this agony and humiliation was God’s will. He knew it because the preacher had told him it was so.

It had to be a pants down, over-the-knee spanking. God wanted him to show humility and this was how it had to be done. The preacher had explained everything the first time he made the twenty-five-year-old father-of-two submit his bottom to the paddle.

Whack! Whack! Luke’s crack opened and closed each time the paddle connected with his bottom. The pain was increasing and he found his legs were kicking out. He did not mean to do it; he so wanted to show God he would submit to his will. His mind said this, but his body had other ideas; it was a natural reflex action.

The paddle was not the largest in the preacher’s collection but it was big enough to cover the area of Luke’s cheek. Vigorously the heavy wood slapped the two reddening cheeks in rapid succession, until, still unwillingly, Luke began to writhe and twist his body, bending his legs up, and ultimately swinging his right hand away from the carpet to shield his toasting buns from the stinging impact of the preacher’s frenzied attack.

Preacher Pasternauch was on a mission from God. His strong right arm increased the speed and force with which it pummeled the paddle from one cheek to the other, making Luke gasp and groan. The crashing sound of wood connecting with cotton-encased flesh echoed round the room like machinegun fire.

In the waiting room two middle aged men paid extra attention to their newspapers and pretended they could not hear the whacks and the increasing yelps coming from the preacher’s office.

The preacher was as breathless as the young man he was punishing. A dozen, then two dozen, then three dozen whacks struck Luke’s cheeks, sank into the flesh and bounced off, leaving behind deep red marks, that rapidly turned to blue.

The preacher held the young man tightly at his midriff, ensuring the poor suffering creature could not escape. On and one went the beating, and even as the pain increased to agony, Luke continued talking to God in his head. “Please help me defeat my wicked sexual thoughts!”

Luke did not know how long the spanking went on, but when the preacher stopped he lay on the floor holding his destroyed bottom and crying like a baby for at least ten minutes. The preacher returned to his plush leather armchair, closed his eyes and pressed the fingers of his two hands together as if in prayer. He could wait all afternoon if that was what it took for Luke to recover.

In time Luke pulled his pants up and withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his tear-stained face. Then, with no further word, he hobbled from the office in search of his car.

The preacher remained seated awaiting his own recovery. Once his heart rate had returned to normal, he poured a glass of water and buzzed Karen to send in the next one.

The headmaster puffed out his cheeks and frowned. His bushy white eyebrows knotted, he drew in a sharp breath and studied the two pupils standing before him. Duncan Richards and Paul Clarke shuffled their feet nervously as the Old Man jawed them.

“You are senior boys. Prefects even. You know the rules. You are expected to enforce them,” he leaned back in his chair and peered over the top of his spectacles. “You do not leave the school premises during the day. We are responsible for you at all times,” he watched closely, delighted that the two miscreants were blushing, suitably embarrassed. “What would have happened if you were involved in an accident?” He didn’t pause for an answer, the was on a roll. “Your parents would be very worried indeed.”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the large mahogany desk. “You know the rules,” he repeated, his eyes blinking furiously. “I am a fair man. I treat every boy equally,” he steepled his fingers. “Be they first or sixth-formers.”

Paul risked a sideways glance at his pal, he didn’t like where this was going. Duncan stared at the dark blue carpet beneath his feet. “So,” the headmaster eased himself to his feet, “I am going to beat you both.” Duncan’s head shot upwards, startled by the news. “A fair man,” he thought but dared not say aloud, “I wouldn’t mind if you were unfair now.”

He watched miserably as the headmaster made his way across the study, for a man of such weight and proportions he made an unexpectedly nimble movement. He halted at a tall thin cupboard and delved into his pocket. Duncan could not meet his pal’s eye. This could not be happening. Could it?

The headmaster found a key and inserted it into the lock and opened the cupboard door. Paul was no stranger to the headmaster’s study and was very aware what it was that was making the hollow rattling sound. The headmaster sighed as he withdrew a long thin crook-handled cane. He pushed the door closed with his elbow and turned to face the two eighteen year olds. He flexed the cane between his hands taking its measure; an entirely unnecessary action since he knew the properties of this little beauty only too well. Hardly thirty minutes earlier it had left six distinct marks across the tightly stretched Teryelne-covered rear end of an habitual smoker.

“Six.” The headmaster announced if the solemnity of a judge sending a man to the gallows. The two teenagers shuffled their feet as their faces paled at the totally expected news. “Richards, face the wall. Clarke,” he pointed his cane to a spot in the centre of the study, “Stand there.” Moments later all three were in their allotted places. The headmaster swished the cane. Once, then once again. He was not quite ready to go, his eyebrows were once again knotted he appeared to be wrestling with a problem. Swish. Swish. He took a deep breath, he had made up his mind.

“Lower your trousers and bend over.”

Duncan Richards until now obediently standing with his nose an inch from the pale blue patterned wallpaper turned around aghast. He saw his pal’s mouth open and close, but no words were uttered. If he had intended to protest, he quickly thought better of it. With tremendous fortitude (Duncan thought) he unbuckled his belt and opened the front of his pale-grey trousers. The weight of the keys in his pocket sent them slithering to his ankles. He took a look around the study as if trying to find his bearings and satisfied that he truly was in the headmaster’s study and this wasn’t a dream. Then he leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees.

“Right over, boy. Touch your toes,” the headmaster barked, unafraid to show his intense irritation. Duncan watched his pal separate his feet and stretch down so that his fingertips brushed the toecaps of his black lace-up shoes. His back was arched, his knees slightly bent and his bottom poked out at an angle. Duncan had never before noticed that Paul’s bum was firm and pert. His white cotton briefs clung to the contours of his cheeks.

The headmaster was nearly ready to go, but first he tucked his cane under his arm and approached the submissive teenager. Using both hands he took hold of the tail of Paul’s gleaming white shirt and rolled it along with his grey pullover up the boy’s back, exposing an inch of bare hairless flesh. He slipped the cane into his hand and took a step back, then he laid the thin whippy rattan cane across the centre of Paul’s underpants. He had a terrific target and he was taking his aim.

Paul bit his bottom lip and closed his eyes. Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish. Jesus. Fuck. Ouch. Oooooh. Hisssssss. Ow, ow, ow. With tremendous fortitude the boy kept in position, held low, bottom high, fingertips on toes. That hurt! That hurt a lot. It felt like his bum was on fire. The headmaster hadn’t laid on a sound six-of-the-best, he had pressed a white hot wire deep into his flesh. His arse was on fire.

“Stand up. Get dressed. Stand by the wall. Richards take his place.” The headmaster swished his cane and watched unable and not unwilling to show his deep satisfaction on a job well down. The boy’s bottom would be roasting. He had landed the strokes low down, the agony of the six deep cuts would reignite each time he sat down for many hours to come. Paul wriggled in pain as he pulled his trousers over his raw buttocks and pulled the belt tight. He suspected his eyes were moist and he had no desire for his pal to see him in this state so he kept his head low as he passed Duncan on his way to the wall.

Duncan had witnessed his friend’s punishment, he knew exactly what was going to happen. Even so, he stood and waited for the headmaster’s command. “Lower your trousers. bend over. Touch your toes.” Resolute not to show himself up in front of his friend, and just as determined not to give the headmaster any satisfaction, he quickly had his trousers at his feet. He bent forward and waited. Touching toes is not as easy as it looks. It put a terrible strain on he backs of Duncan’s thighs. He shivered involuntarily as the headmaster pulled his shirt up his back and then (unexpectedly) he took hold of the waistband of his white Y-fronts and pulled hard so that all creases were removed from the cloth and his pants fitted like a second skin.

“You have not been to me before Richards,” the headmaster who never forgot a bottom, stated. “Is this you first caning?” “Yes, sir,” Duncan spoke to the carpet. “Well, it will be quite an experience for you,” the headmaster sneered. “And, eighteen years old,” he added smugly.

It would be Duncan’s first caning, but he was no stranger to spanking. His father was a fervent advocate of corporal punishment; the influence of a small church he followed religiously. Duncan and his two elder brothers often felt father’s belt across their naked backsides. He sucked in his breath as he felt the tip of the cane tap against his stretched flesh.

It was over in seconds. Six almighty swipes. One after the other. Rat-tat-tat like machinegun fire. He had never experienced pain like it. Nothing his father had ever delivered prepared him for the hurt.

“Stand up. Get dressed.” Duncan rose furiously massaging his burning bum. It hurt so much, he couldn’t wait until he was properly dressed and away from the study. He needed to rub away the agony. Now, and he couldn’t care less who saw him do it. The headmaster laid the cane on his desk. “You are dismissed,” he intoned and took much pleasure as the pair sped from the room. He knew very well they would be dashing down the passageway to the senior boys’ lavatories to inspect the damage. He very much hoped they would award him the maximum ten points for the effectiveness of his beating.

….

Mr Richards placed the handset on the cradle and waddled out of the room in search of his wife. “Hilda!” he called and she answered him from the kitchen. “I just got off the phone from Paul Clarkes’ father, he tells me his son and Duncan were caned by the headmaster today. Playing truant. He says Duncan was the ringleader.”

“Oh dear,” his wife dried her hands on her wrapround apron. “Trouble at school …” She let her sentence trail of into silence. Both she and her husband knew what that meant.

“Call him down will you please. Well do this in the sitting room,” Mr Richards ran his thumbs across the belt holding up his trousers. It was a narrow thin affair, constructed of plastic. “That won’t do at all,” he tutted silently. “Not at all.”

He heard footsteps padding down the carpeted staircase. He looked into the hallway to see his son standing, a little dumbfounded. Clearly, his mother had not told him the reason for his summons. “Wait in the sitting room,” Mr Richards spoke clearly and calmly. He never believed in histrionics. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

He ascended the stairs slowly, his immense stomach rolling as he went. Breathless, he reached his bedroom and pushed open the door. This shouldn’t take a moment. He waddled across the room and halted before a large wardrobe with double doors. He turned a key in the lock and the right hand door eased open on its own. Inside the rail was heaving with clothes. His on the right hand side, hers on the left. He reached up and felt in the dark and his hand brushed against a heavy leather strap. “Just the fellow,” he whispered. In seconds he was fingering a thick wide leather belt. “Yes, the very thing.” He knew it would pack a punch.

He doubled it up in his hand testing the weight. There was no reason to do this, it was no stranger to him. The sheen on the leather had long since worn away. This little beauty had seen action in its time. He had successful seen three sons into adulthood. Only Duncan now remained.

He shuffled back across the room and at a snail’s pace inched his way down the stairs. Duncan’s eyes widened. Dad had his belt in his hand; it meant only one thing.

“Paul Clarke’s father rang …” His dad need say no more. Matters must take their course. His father’s eyes narrowed. “You know what to do.” Indeed he did. It was a rule of the house. Clearly stated and known by all Mr Richards’ sons. You get punished at school, you get punished again at home. Mr Richards waved his belt in the general direction of the small sitting room. “In there,” he wheezed, and added for emphasis, “Now!”

Sorrowfully, Duncan turned on his heels and slowly, as befitting a condemned man, he edged into the room. It was a small space, with the dining room table and four chairs there was little room for much else. Small it might be, but there was enough room to swing a belt. It was a small terraced house, similar to thousands, hundreds of thousands probably, in towns and cities up and down the land.

Duncan stood quietly. There was nothing to say. Dad was in control. He ruled his own castle. They had both been here before. He heard voices through the wall from the house next door. The Robinsons were settled down watching Crossroads on the television. “Come on, you know what to do. Get ready! Trousers and pants down across the table! Anybody would think this was your first time.” His father’s voice was harsh as he waved the belt through the air.

Slowly, Duncan obeyed the command. Not looking at his father, he walked slowly towards the old rickety table. This would hurt, and hurt a lot. A strapping on top of the still fresh cane marks would be agony. Each lash of the leather would reignite the welts across his backside. His black jeans fitted snugly so he had no use for a belt. He popped the rivet at the waist and tugged down the zip. Oh how he hated for his father to see his cock and balls. He turned his back slightly on him and taking a firm hold of the waistband of his Levis he quickly pulled both jeans and briefs down just far enough to expose his buttocks. Before Dad could glimpse his privates he fell forward and rested his forearms on the table top.

The table was low and Duncan quite tall so he had to arch his back and jut out his bare backside at an angle to present himself submissively to the lashing. He closed his eyes and waited. He knew Dad would take his time. He heard a low wheezing sound as Mr Richards got himself into position. “Well, these are a fine set of marks,” Dad said admiringly. “That headmaster of yours certainly knows his onions.” Duncan winced, he certainly did not need reminding of that. His buttocks quivered as his father’s hand traced the welts that ran left to right across the naked flesh. “Yes,” Mr Richards repeated, “A very fine set indeed.” He tapped his belt across his son’s bum. “This should set them alight.”

Duncan felt the belt lift away from his bottom. A split second later it returned at speed and force and caught him on the underside of both cheeks. Air hissed through his clenched lips. His mouth opened wide and a faint groan escaped. Before he could regain composure a second, then a third and a fourth cut lashed across his tender rear end. It was on fire. Each stoke of the headmaster’s caning returned to life, aching like crazy to be joined by the new dull throbbing made by the thick, heavy leather belt.

The crack of leather on stretched bottom bounced off the walls of the tiny room echoing two or three times before petering out. Next door, the volume of the television was lowered. Obviously the goings-on at the Richards’ house was more interesting than the Crossroads Motel.

Duncan shut his teeth. His bum hurt. More than the Robinsons might ever have imagined. Then there was a short respite as Dad took a breather. Duncan could hear him breathing heavily with his exertions. Then he was off again. Splat! The leather exploded once more across the teenager’s buttock cheeks delivering a searing sting that took his breath away. Before he could regain his wind he felt another stinging band and he bucked frantically and his legs danced. Duncan’s dad made sure the strap toasted every square of his son’s buttocks which were by now blazing, burning, stinging mounds of flesh.

Dad twisted his own flabby body and sent the leather scorching into the underside of Duncan’s buttocks. With his son’s upturned bottom in front of him, Mr Richards could choose his target with great accuracy. The eighteen-year-old’s bare bum made a terrific target.Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! It was a long, thorough whipping, deep and cleansing. It was slow but steady with each stroke precisely placed.

“Enough!” Dad wheezed. He had to stop. If the truth be told he was suffering in his own way as much as his son. If he didn’t halt now he might have a heart attack, or at least a stroke. Duncan’s eyes shone. His rear end throbbed. His heart raced, blood flew through his arteries. His ears felt like they would burst. His lungs were raw. His body was thoroughly beaten; but he had lived. Gingerly, he rose from the table, carefully, so his Dad could not see his half-erect penis, he pulled his jeans and briefs up before stamping one foot after the other. He desperately wanted to rub away at his scorching buttocks, but as any spanked boy would tell you there’s an etiquette to these things. No matter how much you hurt, never let your punisher know. He had let himself down earlier in the headmaster’s study, he didn’t want to do that again. The rubbing would have to wait until he was back in his bedroom. For now, he hopped up and down, rather like football players did when they had been kicked up in the air by an opponent. It didn’t help.

“Go,” Dad gasped. “And keep out of trouble at school in future.” Duncan flew from the room, took the stairs two at a time and hurled himself through his bedroom door and face down onto his bed. He buried his face in a pillow and sobbed his guts up.

Downstairs, his mother busied herself in the kitchen. She lit a match and got the gas going. Soon they could relax with a nice cup of tea. She hoped her husband would recover his breath soon.

Like this:

Federico Hernandez shuffled slowly from the elevator, took a left turn, waited for the automatic doors to slide open and headed at a snail’s pace to the professor’s office.

It had seemed like a good idea at first. He had thought it through. It would be painful, for sure. Humiliating definitively. But, if the professor agreed, it would solve all the student’s problems. And, it would all be over in five minutes.

Professor Luckhurst was tired. It was late in the day and he wanted to get away. The semester was over, the papers had been graded. All he had to do before he could take off on vacation was to wait for the faculty to clear them.

Luckhurst could have retired years ago. He had a good pension, but he kept coming back to teach classes semester after semester. The university was the only life he had.

Luckhurst almost did not hear the faint knock at the door. Later, he would reflect bitterly, it would have been best if that had been the case.

“Come in,” the professor’s irritation was evident.

Slowly, the door inched open, but nobody appeared.

“Well, come in if you’re coming!” the professor’s patience was exhausted.

Hernandez took a deep breath and forced himself over the threshold.

“Come in boy! Close the door behind you,” Luckhurst tucked his empty lunchbox into his briefcase and fumbled with the lock. “What do you want!”

Fernandez lost his nerve. For two bits he would turn and flee. That would be the sensible thing to do, he reckoned. It was a crazy scheme. Why had he thought it might work?

The professor slumped into his chair and eyed the student in front of him. Federico Hernandez, one of his Eng. Lit. students. He failed the course, if he remembered correctly.

Hernandez had a little speech prepared. He had rehearsed it in front of the bedroom mirror; last night and again that morning. He was word perfect; that was until the time came for him to deliver it.

“Well, eh, professor,” he stumbled. Luckhurst’s lined face, permanently gray despite the almost ever-present sunshine, betrayed his annoyance. Hernandez took a deep breath and launched into it. The story was simple: the student had failed the professor’s course, it was the only one he failed, his grade point average was good enough for him to graduate, but that was impossible unless the professor passed him on the course.

“So, what do you expect me to do about it?” Luckhurst growled. He already knew the answer to that.

“Could you find a way to give me a passing grade,” he hesitated, before stammering the next words. “Perhaps, there’s something you’d like me to do…” he trailed off in confusion.

“Doh!” the professor snorted, confirming to Hernandez this was not going to be easy.

The student stared down at the heavy-duty carpet beneath his feet. He could not bring himself to look at the professor, but he must. If this plan was to work, he had to turn on his charm.

Hernandez’s eyelids fluttered a little. He had researched the professor; he had no family, never been married. He was almost certainly a faggot, the boy deduced. Not that that was supposed to matter anymore. This was 2015; they had same-sex marriages and all that. But, if the professor did go for handsome young men that would play to Hernandez’s advantage.

“Please, professor,” he started again. “Is there anything you would like me to do?”

Luckhurst’s ire rose. Do? Like him to do? What was the boy saying? Yes, there was something he would like the boy to do for him. Get out of his office and let him go home.

The silence was overwhelming. It was the professor’s turn to speak, but he continued to fumble with the lock of his briefcase, pretending he had difficulty with it.

Hernandez had one last chance. He took a deep breath and spluttered it out. This was not how he had planned it, but unless he spoke now, his opportunity would be missed. He would be stuck with an F-grade and a ruined future. “I thought you could spank me as a punishment and then ….” But he couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.

Prof Luckhurst’s deathly gray face for once blushed scarlet. He could feel sweat sticking to the collar of his shirt. “What the ….?” he began, but was genuinely lost for words.

Hernandez had regained some confidence. When he had said the words to himself in front of the bedroom mirror, they sounded convincing. Now, he had to put that to the test.

“Well professor, the truth is…” The student confessed his laziness to the professor; he told him that he had not worked hard; he had not respected the course; he thought it would be easy. It was entirely his own fault he had failed.

“So, you see professor. I think I should be spanked. But, please don’t fail me. I won’t be able to graduate.” Then, he added for good measure in what he imagined to be a pitiful voice, “Sir.”

Luckhurst’s blood pressure was on the rise. Spank the boy. He wants me to spank him. He snorted. There had been many students over the years who would have benefitted from a darn good spanking; that was for sure. And, he often thought about personally swatting a paddle across their asses. But, all that was the stuff of fantasy. This was the real world: well, California at least.

“Spank you?” Prof Luckhurst left the question hanging in the air.

Hernandez picked it up and ran with it. “Yes, Professor Luckhurst. It’s what I deserve.”

Luckhurst had never come across anything like it before. The boy said he deserved to be spanked. He was twenty-two years old at least. Who had heard of young adults being spanked? Was this a cultural thing?

He regained some composure. “Spanking. Is this a Spanish-American thing? Do fathers still spank their sons in your community?”

Spanish-American! What year did this man live in? But, Hernandez made no protest. The tide was turning his way.

“Oh yes Sir,” he lied. “If my father knew of my failure, he would beat me.”

“Then let him spank you. You can atone for your failure that way.”

“Yes, Sir,” Hernandez seized the advantage. “He would spank me and hard, but he couldn’t give me the grade. Only you can do that.” He looked the professor straight in the eye, his own confidence growing by the second. “You, do see that don’t you?”

The professor returned the gaze. Often, he had dreamt of spanking his students, especially the Spanish-Americans. They were so short and cute with their slim hips and tight asses.

He looked over at Hernandez, struck by his dark brown eyes, boyish face and short jet black hair gelled up. The open face: that did it for him every time.

Luckhurst leant back in his chair. He was tempted, sorely tempted. He had been puzzled by the student’s failure. He had taught him several classes in the past and he had passed with high grades. His overall GPA showed he was a very bright student; he would go far. But, something strange had happened in Eng. Lit. Without the professor’s grade Hernandez would not make it to graduate school. His entire career could be hurt. Perhaps, Hernandez was correct; he had let his own arrogance get the better of him and imagined he could ace the professor’s course without working. Perhaps a spanking would sort out the boy’s arrogance.

Hernandez watched on as the professor sat at his desk, obviously in deep thought. If he had known any thought-transference tricks, he would have willed Luckhurst to do it. Go on, professor, spank my tight ass. What have you got to lose?

Professor Luckhurst hauled himself from his chair and walked across the room. Reaching the door, he turned the catch. A loud click confirmed the two men were locked together inside the office.

He turned to face Hernandez. He towered over the young man, easily eight inches taller than the student.

“If I do this, you must promise never to tell anybody what happened.”

“Oh, no Sir; of course not Sir,” Hernandez’s heart raced.

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise. I won’t tell a soul.”

Then, with more confidence than he actually possessed, the professor said, “Good boy. Come then, let’s do it.”

Luckhurst pulled a straight-backed chair from in front of his desk and placed it in the center of the office. Then, he sat down.

Hernandez stood his ground. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“Come, boy, take down those shorts. Get across my lap.”

“But…” Not for the first time that day Hernandez was lost for words. He had asked to be spanked, but he expected swats across his ass. Maybe he would be leaning over the desk, or bent over “assuming the position,” hands on his shins. No way had he expected to be over the professor’s knee, showing him his underwear.

Professor Luckhurst sat patiently. He had longed for such a moment his entire career. A cute naughty student submissively bent across his knee, offering up his butt for punishment. Sweat poured from his body and the underarms of his shirt was drenched. His breathing was heavy and his blood pressure was reaching record levels.

“Come on Hernandez, it is what you wanted.” Professor Luckhurst watched quietly as with trembling hands the boy undid his cloth belt and popped the button at the top of his bottle-green cargo shorts. The weight of the shorts took them slithering down his thighs, past his knees to rest at his shins. The boy’s legs were covered in thick black hair, to the professor’s evident disappointment. In his fantasies, the students had always been hairless: virginal.

Clearly distressed, Hernandez waddled a few steps so that he stood to the right of the professor. No, he couldn’t do this. He had changed his mind. Never mind the plan; forget how this little episode would insure the boy a bright trouble-free future. At the final moment he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Doh!” Professor Luckhurst was not about to miss his opportunity of a lifetime. He reached out and took the boy’s right arm and gently pulled him forward, so that he tumbled face down across the professor’s knees.

Hernandez screwed his eyes tight. The contact of his own body against the professor’s repulsed him. This was not how it was meant to be. Now, he had two choices; he could fight his way to his feet and flee the office. It would be easy, he was much smaller than his punisher, but he was forty-five years his junior; he had the superior strength.

He could do that, or he could stick with the original plan; albeit modified. He could take the spanking, graduate the university and get on with his new life.

Professor Luckhurst looked down at Federico, now across his lap. He might be twenty-two, but with his short trim body he could have passed for fifteen. Tight yellow briefs clung to his buttocks, so firmly they separated each one, so that the cotton dug deep into his crack creating a ravine. The boy’s red and white shirt had already risen away from the target area, but the professor helped it on its way by carefully folding it up once and then twice until the whole of his back beneath the shoulder blades was exposed.

Intrigued, the professor gently brushed his hand across the hairs on the boy’s back, feeling a slight tickle against his palm, but he took care not to connect with the flesh.

Federico’s anger was rising. What was the professor up to? The fury turned to rage when the professor moved his hand lower to caress the smooth cotton briefs. This time he let his palm explore the boy’s tight flesh. Each buttock was small enough to fit into the palm of the professor’s hand. Gently and very slowly the cupped hand explored the contours of the buttocks. The underpants were so tight and so small they left the lower half of each cheek exposed. The professor stroked his hand in a circular motion across the bared flesh, rather like he was polishing a window.

Federico stared straight ahead, trying to control his disgust. His arms were stretched out ahead of him and his own palms were pressed into the heavy material of the carpet, scratching them slightly. The crucifix he wore on a chain around his neck had slipped and dangled in front of his eyes. Behind him, he kept his knees straight and his toes floated an inch or so off the ground. His buttocks, now receiving so much loving attention from the professor, rested high over the old man’s right thigh.

On and on the professor caressed Federico’s buttocks in a circular motion; he was pimping and preening them. Never before had he held such a beautiful boy close to his own flesh. He was adorable; too wonderful to hurt. The professor would be entirely satisfied simply to hold and stroke the boy all night long. Was it too late to renegotiate with the boy? Let there be no spanking, instead give me a blow-job. No, better still; let me take you up the ass.

But it was too late. Better to make the most of the moment. The professor raised his hand two or three inches away from Federico’s left cheek and tapped it down. Then he did the same to the right cheek. Then again and again.

Federico had never been spanked in his life. He was no expert, but he knew one thing about it: it was supposed to hurt. That surely was the whole point. The professor wasn’t spanking him, he was coming on to him. This wasn’t a punishment, this was foreplay: a prelude to full-on sex.

On and on, the professor tapped and smacked his way across the boy’s glorious trim buttocks. No part of the cheeks escaped his attention. Smack, smack. smack.

Federico was losing his breath, not from the pain of his spanking since there wasn’t any, but from his increasing disgust. The professor was using him for his own sexual gratification. That wasn’t the idea. The plan was to get a spanking. It was meant to be four or five swats on the shorts and then, “Thank you Sir” and goodbye.

Right that’s it. He wriggled his body and tried to force himself off the professor’s lap. Enough already. He was out of here.

The movement might have woken Luckhurst out of a trance. It was as if he suddenly realised why he was there and what he was supposed to be doing.

“No you don’t buster,” he pushed the boy forward so that his nose could smell the dusty carpet. Then he grabbed Federico’s right arm and twisted it up his back. The boy was going nowhere until the professor said so.

Then, in one swift continuous action, he grabbed the waistband of Federico’s tight yellow briefs and tugged them over his buttocks and left them at his thighs. The student wriggled and writhed, rather like he was swimming out of water, but the professor was his master; he was pinned down powerless to resist.

The professor once again caressed the buttocks. Unlike the boy’s back and legs, they were completely hairless, even the crack and butt hole. Did the boy shave himself, the professor wondered. Or did he have a special friend who did it for him?

But this was no time for speculation. In a frenzy the professor rained down spank after spank across the student’s pert naked butt. Federico felt that alright. The professor’s hand was as large and hard as Federico’s ass cheeks were small and soft. Sweat poured from the professor’s chest as the ache in the palm of his hand increased from a tingle to real pain. He had never spanked anyone in his whole sixty-seven years and was startled at how the boy’s tanned skin turned a deeper shade of brown as his own hand connected again and again with the flesh. The outline of the professor’s open palm was embedded time and time again on the boy’s rear end.

Federico kicked and thrashed his legs about, but he could not disturb the professor. The old man had an uninterrupted access to the buttocks. He realized he rather enjoyed swiping his hand hard into Federico’s naked cheeks and watching the instant reaction of the boy as he exhaled breath and wriggled across the older man’s lap. Yes, there was a direct connection between cause and effect in this spanking motion.

Federico gasped and gaped as each smack came down harder than the one before. He shook his head so violently in his attempt to escape what had become a severe bare-butt hand spanking that his crucifix slipped over his ears and fell on the ground. He stared down at it as his ass got hotter and hotter.

The professor was an old man. He didn’t have the strength he had twenty or thirty years past. He was spent. In his younger days he might have been able to spank the cute boy across his lap all night long. But not now. Not these days. He was choking for breath and blood rushed through his arteries at jet speed. If he didn’t slow down, he might have a stroke. No, worse than that: a heart attack.

“So young man,” he wheezed. “Do you regret not working hard in my class?”

Federico was astounded. He had long ago forgotten the reason he was bent over, naked butt raised high, receiving the attention of the pervert professor.

“Well?” the professor slapped his hand down the hardest yet.

“Yes,” the student gasped. His own breathing was as difficult as that of the professor. “Oh, yes,” he whimpered.

“Do you ask forgiveness?”

The student was puzzled. What was he supposed to say?

Slap! “Beg for forgiveness.”

Beg?

Slap! “Say it. I beg you for forgiveness.”

That was it. When, I get up from here, I’m going to smash your fucking head in. The boy didn’t say it, of course, but the intent was real.

Slap! “Say it!”

The boy could not have been more humiliated. He had no choice. He had to remember that once he was released, his future was safe.

He wheezed, “I beg you to forgive me. Please forgive me.” Then for good measure, he added, “Sir.”

The professor stopped spanking. Federico lay across the old man, still staring at the crucifix. His head was spinning; he desperately needed to be standing on his own feet. So much blood had rushed to his brain; he feared he might pass out at any moment.

“Up.” It was a cold command. Despite his ordeal, Federico was still an athletic young man and he was off the man’s lap in seconds. Without waiting for permission, he pulled his underwear and shorts up. He was distressed that his hands would not obey him fully as he tried to button up and then buckle his belt. His ass was hot, but the agony was already dissipating into pain and would soon be only a throbbing.

The professor rose from his chair more slowly and turned to face the boy. He hoped Federico would not notice the bulge in front of his own pants. For several seconds the professor and the student stood facing one another in silence. Neither knew what to do next. Federico’s earlier rage had calmed. He would not beat up the professor. There was no cause to do that.

Eventually, the professor regained some of his own composure. “Nobody will hear about this, will they?”

“No,” Federico’s response was sullen.

“Promise.”

“I promise,” Federico assured him as he bent down to retrieve the fallen crucifix. Then without another word between the two men he walked to the door, unlocked it and left. With a wry smile cracking his lips he ran through the automatic doors toward the elevator.

….

Six months later Federico sat in the bar of a luxury hotel in the Caribbean, a beautiful woman by his side. In his hand he held a copy of the International New York Times. He smiled with satisfaction as for the third time today he read the story headlined: University settles $1.5 million lawsuit in student spanking case. A smaller headline ran: Professor’s career in ruins.

Bernie always called Jeff “young man” even though he was two years his junior.

Jeff had been anticipating this since he acted up in the mall. The shopping trip had not been a success. Bernie had wanted to buy a new suit and couldn’t find one he liked. Jeff, who hated shopping, became more and more irritated at each store, until eventually he stormed off.

“You can find me at the coffee shop when you’re ready.”

Bernie exploded with anger and to the embarrassment of some on-lookers called after Jeff’s disappearing body, “You wait till I get you home, young man!”

Back home Jeff was immediately ordered to his room to change his clothes. Sulkily, he removed his sweater, shirt and pants and dropped them onto the bed. He opened up his closet and took out a freshly-laundered gray shirt; a striped necktie was hanging nearby. He took his time putting them on making sure the tie was knotted perfectly.

He pushed aside a row of slacks on the closet rail and found what he was looking for: gray short pants. He sighed as he stepped into them, first the left leg, then the right. He pulled them on and buttoned up. He took a pair of socks from a drawer, sat on the bed and pulled them on; they were so long they came way above the knee, so he turned down the tops an inch or so.

From the back of the drawer, he fished out an English-style schoolboy’s cap and put it on top of his head. He was ready to return downstairs to face Bernie and whatever it was he had in store for him today.

Bernie always said if Jeff was determined to behave like an eight-year-old boy, he would be treated like one and that meant dressing like one and getting plenty of spankings.

Jeff had put on one of Bernie’s favourite outfits: the English school uniform. Bernie had gotten the idea from a photograph of Princess Diana and her two sons, the Princes William and Harry. The kids were about six or seven and on their way to their up-scale preparatory school. They were dressed entirely in gray: short trousers, knee socks; jacket and best of all an English school cap.

Bernie loved that school uniform and after some searching on the Internet, he found a place in England where they sold identical clothes in Jeff’s size.

Bernie often forced Jeff into children’s clothes; sometimes for days on end. The deal would be as soon as he got home from work he changed and stayed like that until it was time to go back to work next day. If he wanted to leave the house, he would have to go out in his school uniform.

One weekend, Bernie threatened to make Jeff wear his school uniform to the mall if he didn’t stop acting up. Although he didn’t let on to Bernie, Jeff quite liked the idea of parading around in public dressed as an eight-year-old English schoolboy. He had read on the Internet of some middle-aged guy in England who travelled on the London Underground all day dressed in short trousers, school blazer and cap and no passenger batted an eyelid.

“Stand in the corner, hands on head,” Jeff was told when he entered the lounge room. Bernie was seated on a couch, flicking over the pages of the newspaper. He was in no hurry; Bernie knew Jeff hated waiting for spankings: sometimes Jeff thought waiting was the worst part. Good, thought Bernie, he would let Jeff stew for a while.

After about five minutes, Bernie said, “Turn around young man and face me.” Jeff, still with his hands on his heads, obeyed immediately.

“You behaved like a brat at the mall, what have you got to say for yourself young man?”

Jeff stared at his feet in embarrassment, but said nothing.

“Speak up young man. You embarrassed me in public this afternoon. What have you got to say for yourself?”

“Sorry,” mumbled at the carpet.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, young man. What did you say?”

Jeff looked up but couldn’t meet Bernie’s eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You will be young man. Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?”

Jeff shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.

“Doh! Stand back in the corner and wait till I return.”

Jeff knew Bernie was off to find a paddle to spank him with. Bernie had quite a collection, which one would he use this time? One paddle he had recently bought was made of clear plastic and had holes drilled in it: that one hurt like hell, especially if it were applied with his pants down.

Moments later Bernie returned, not with a paddle, but with a sheaf of writing paper and a pencil.

“Turn round, young man.”

Jeff was puzzled when he saw Bernie did not have a paddle. What was happening? Was he only going to get a hand spanking?

Bernie placed the writing paper and pencil on a table.

“I want you to write out fifty times, ‘I must not misbehave when I am taken to the mall.’ Make sure it is in your neatest handwriting, young man, or else.”

Bernie did not need to spell out what “or else” meant Jeff could imagine the pain he was going to be in by the end of the afternoon. It was a cruel trick, Bernie knew Jeff’s handwriting was almost illegible, even when he tried his hardest and wrote very slowly indeed, it was nearly always impossible to read what he had written.

“Sit down and get started. I’ll be back in half an hour to see how you are getting on. Remember, neatest handwriting, young man. Or else.”

Jeff did try, he really tried, to write his lines neatly. He held the pencil tightly in his hand and slowly began to write, “I must not misbehave when I am taken to the mall.” After he had written the sentence five times, his hand ached terribly. He wasn’t used to writing by hand. His keyboard skills were magnificent, his fingers flew across the letters and he could input forty words a minute. But, he was hopeless with a pen or pencil and that was just a fact and here was nothing he could do about it.

Resigned to the bottom blistering that would inevitably follow, Jeff scrawled “I must not misbehave when I am taken to the mall,” forty-five more times.

“Completely illegible. I can’t decipher a word. If I didn’t already know what this said, I would never be able to understand it. Well, young man, you know what’s coming.”

Yes, Jeff knew what was coming and he wished Bernie would just get on with it.

“Back in the corner, young man. Hands on head.”

Jeff obliged and Bernie left the room. This time when he returned he was carrying a paddle and to Jeff’s dismay it was the heavy plastic Lexan.

“Turn and face me. Keep those hands on the head. Look at me when I’m speaking to you, young man.”

Bernie recapped all Jeff’s failings that day, especially the misbehaviour at the mall and the storming off in a temper. He added the poorly-written lines for good measure.

He picked up a chair that was tucked neatly under the dining room table, turned it round, and sat down. Bernie kept his back straight and planted his legs apart to create a platform that would soon receive Jeff’s body.

“Come here young man, I’m going to give you a spanking.”

Jeff kept his hands on his head and stepped forward so he stood immediately in front of Bernie.

“Don’t think you’re keeping these on, young man,” he said, as he unbuttoned the short pants and let them fall to the ground.

“Bend over my knee.”

Jeff hesitated.

“Doh! Come here,” Bernie took Jeff’s arm and with an expertise borne from practice, he pulled him face down across his knee.

“This is going to hurt me just as much as it hurts you, young man,” Bernie said that every time he spanked Jeff, but Jeff knew for sure it wasn’t true.

Bernie raised the paddle and brought it smacking down into the seat of Jeff’s tight underpants.

The first spanks were always mild; Bernie was just warming Jeff up for the real onslaught that was to follow.

Jeff gasped a little as the paddle landed on his left cheek, then the right, then across the middle of both at once, but he made no other sound. He knew from experience that the real spanking began the moment Bernie gripped the elasticated waist of his underwear and tugged them down over his thighs. An intense bare-bottomed blistering would always follow.

Neither of them was keeping time, but it must have been at least five minutes before Bernie bared Jeff’s buttocks. They were a deep red by this time and Bernie reckoned they must be pretty sore by now.

Undeterred, he raised his arm high and brought the paddle down hard into the naked flesh. Jeff felt that one, most definitely. He felt the next dozen as well, each one spanking into his fleshy ass with force. Jeff wanted to be a brave boy and not cry out – at least try not to cry out too soon.

His resolve broke after about twenty-five swats. The pain was intense and Jeff knew his buttocks would be turning from scarlet to mauve about now. The bruising would be intense and last for days, or even a week.

Bernie spanked on … and on. He hadn’t made up his mind how many whacks to deliver. It had to be a lot, there were two crimes here that that to be paid for: the bad behaviour at the mall and the crapily-written lines.

Jeff was sobbing by now, crying genuine tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please stop. You’re hurting me.”

“That’s the point young man. That’s the point,” and Bernie kept raising the paddle and crashing it down into Jeff’s naked cheeks.

“Please, I will be a good boy, I will behave. I’m sorry,” it sounded like genuine repentance, but Bernie had heard it all before. This wasn’t the first time they had problems at the mall, but, he reckoned, if he did his job well today, it should be the last.

Bernie spanked on oblivious to Jeff’s pleadings.

Suddenly, the sound of plastic on bare flesh and a man’s cries was broken by the distinctive ring-tone of a cell phone. Bernie stopped spanking.

“It’s the Bat Phone,” Bernie said, using the joke name they had for the emergency cell phone.

He let Jeff up from his lap and, he crossed the room, trying to rub the soreness out of his buttocks. He picked up the phone and said his name. The person at the other end had a curt message and Jeff turned off the phone.

Turning to Bernie, he said, “That was the hospital there’s been an incident and I have to give emergency surgery. I have to go.”

Not waiting to pick up his short pants from the floor where they had fallen, he rushed upstairs, changed into his outdoor clothes and was in the car on his way to the hospital inside two minutes. Sitting was extremely painful and he was grateful that he would be performing surgery standing up.

Through the window Bernie watched him go and then cleaned up. He didn’t put the paddle back with the others, instead he left it on the dining room table, thinking, “We’ll continue with this when you return, young man.”